Corpses at Indian Stone (6 page)

"Yes," she said in a still lower voice. "Something's the matter. What, professor?"

She was no longer teasing him.

"Your father's dead. He was killed in a--a homemade trap set for bears--in the woods--apparently last night, after he'd left Sarah's place. By accident." He added that gratuitously.

Beth sat down on a corner of the ping-pong table. "Got a cigarette?"

"Only my pipe."

"Never mind." She sighed unevenly. "Are you sure it was an accident?"

There was the same doubt--this time expressed by the dead man's daughter. "I think so. One can never be sure--offhand."

"I'm glad," she said presently.

"Glad?"

She nodded and slung her head in such a way that half her black hair was thrown back over her shoulder. "In a way. You wouldn't want to live with a father like that! To know some of the destructive and some of the sinister things he's done! To be afraid--

always--there were others--or that a new and worse one would be done any minute!" She hesitated. "Bill and Martha and Mrs. Drayman were coming right along behind me. I'll go and catch them. They won't want to eat dinner here now."

"The police want--everybody--they said--to be here. They're coming. You tell them--and bring them back."

"Thank you," she said.

Aggie nodded. "You're being pretty sound about this, Beth."

"I am sound," she said. "Perhaps--because Dad was so unsound--and neither Bill nor I ever approved of it."

Aggie watched her go--and prepared to kill time until the police arrived. He saw her come back, after a while, with her dinner party. He noticed that one man--a rather elderly man--had been thrown into a hidden funk by the news. He made a point of finding out that the man--who stayed in the bar drinking neat whisky--was Byron Waite. He saw, also, that Danielle and her father had a long, private conference after their arrival. He noticed that Bill Calder, son of the dead man, contrived to sneak out of the clubhouse and was gone for nearly half an hour, while Martha, his wife, and Mrs. Drayman, Martha's mother, made a not-too-evident attempt to cover up Bill's absence. Beth stayed outdoors--

alone--but within view.

Mr. Waite, also, took a shot at going out. Dr. Davis intercepted him at a side door.

"I think we all ought to stick around here till the police arrive," the surgeon said.

Aggie heard and saw most of that, from a small table in the dining room where he sat, reluctantly eating a sandwich which Jack Browne had pressed upon him with the reminder that he'd had no supper. Jack was doing an excellent job of maintaining morale among the older people. Aggie finished his sandwich and drank some milk and watched Waite accede ungraciously to Davis's insistence that everybody stick around. After that, Aggie returned to the main lounge. People asked him whispered questions--and the police arrived.

Aggie had expected that the police inquiry into the accident would be dramatic.

One by one, the people related to Calder in any way would be taken into a room--

probably the manager's office--and questioned by a bulldozing, beetle-browed, back-county sheriff--who might be either very shrewd or intensely stupid.

Nothing of the sort took place. Into the lounge came a tall, rugged young man, with an almost too good-looking face; he wore the uniform of the State Police and the insignia of a captain. As he slipped off leather gloves and tossed them, with his hat, on the top of a grand piano, he shouted cheerful greetings to many of the persons there. He called Mr. Waite "Byron," Dr. Davis "Doc," and Danielle by her first name.

Virtually everyone called the captain "Wes."

Aggie sat frowning in one of the hickory chairs which he had put in a shadowy corner. Ralph Patton noticed the frown and walked over to explain. "The state cop is Wesley Wickman--a kid from a town near here who used to bring the newspapers.

Everybody liked him. Davis--and your aunt Sarah--and a bunch of the others--sent him through college. They were disappointed when be decided to be a policeman--at first. But he rose fast--and he's got this district--and they're kind of proud of his record. That's why he's so easy-going now. He's sort of universal nephew of Indian Stones." Ralph talked as if the act were a sedative for his none too well-concealed nervousness.

"Oh," said Aggie. He couldn't help feeling a twinge at the phrase, ''universal nephew." It wasn't envy, exactly, but be compared his own life with that of the tall cop, and it did not seem that providence bad been quite fair. Captain Wes Wickman could walk into that roomful of fairly rich and reasonably snooty people without any embarrassment. He could grin and chuckie--and they'd eat out of his hand. Aggie could walk in--and they'd turn their faces away to snigger. Aggie flushed with frustration at the thought; he decided he didn't care much for men of the trooper's general type. Dumb Adonises.

Meanwhile, Wes bad pulled out the piano bench and seated himself on it. He turned to the manager and said, "Jack, just round up everybody here, will you? I want to talk a few minutes--and ask some questions."

Browne went out to the other rooms. Aggie saw Bill Calder slip unobtrusively into the billiard room--and be saw the captain observe that reappearance also. Stragglers arrived from the dining room, the terrace, and the bar. All the lounge lights were on, and the glass eyes of deer, moose and fish gleamed at the informal assembly.

CHAPTER 5

"Folks," the trooper began, "I'll make it as short and easy as I can. I've been up on the side of Garnet Knob--and I've had Jim Calder's body taken away. Our doctor'll look over the body and there may be an inquest. Probably will. You're all thinking one thing--

and I know what it is, of course. There wasn't much love lost on Jim--" He glanced over a row of heads. "Sorry, Bill--Beth--Martha--Mrs. Drayman!--and you're all wondering if it was an accident or if somebody did it on purpose."

He looked around the room. There was a general murmur. Some people were denying any such suspicion--others admitting it. The trooper evaluated that set of moods.

"I think it was an accident," he finally said. That brought another assortment of private discussions. "Here's why. Jim was a great fellow to stamp around the woods--even at night. We all know that. There's a good moon now--late, but good. I've known him to go to Garnet Knob for the moonlight-often."

Aggie heard somebody--some man--say sotto voce, "With a conscience like his--

who could sleep?" It was a thought Aggie himself had once expressed.

The officer's eyes bit into' the crowd, searching alertly but briefly for the author of those words. He went on: "Since you people have posted this whole reservation and the game has--come back thick, we've had plenty of trouble with poachers. Trappers and hunters. Mostly kids--high school age--from over in Parkawan and some men who work in the Lanting Mills. That bear trap was a semi-amateur job. It might have worked--

there's plenty of evidence of bears hanging out around there--but it wasn't any master-mind trap. It was built recently. Maybe yesterday--maybe last night--probably in the last three days or so. The bread in it was about three days stale-so it may have been baited that long ago. Last fall and winter, my men took a dozen trap lines out of your woods-and one set-gun that could easily have shot somebody's legs off. We've arrested twenty youngsters with out-of-season game, no licenses, and with birds that aren't supposed to be shot. Bill, when did your dad arrive here?"

Heads turned with the unison of tennis watchers. Bill tried to speak, cleared his throat, and answered firmly, ''Two days ago."

"And you and your wife?"

"This morning. We arrived about eleven, I'd say."

"Mmm. I stopped by your place before coming over here. You only had one servant in the house until this morning."

' That's right, Wes. We--Beth, too--were at Mother's."

The trooper took a small notebook from his pocket. "Name of Gannon. He says he went to bed last night about ten. Tired out. Your dad was still up. That's all Gannon knows. I mean to say--this morning, he found your dad's bed unmussed. Thought he'd stayed at some other house up here. Didn't even begin to wonder--as you people apparently didn't either--till late this afternoon."

"Father," said Bill Calder, "was headstrong and secretive. You never knew where he was going, or when, or how long he'd be gone."

The captain nodded. "Mmmmm. You were over at your house just now. What for?"

Bill flushed red and then began to lose color. He looked hopelessly at his wife. He stood up in the room, as if standing would help him to reply, People waited stiffly for his answer. "When I learned my father was dead," he began unevenly, "I--I--oh! you all know! Dad wasn't ever--well--idealistic. He was tough. He and I didn't get along--and you know that. I--I tried to persuade him not to come up here at all this year. Look, Wes.

I went over because I thought I'd like to get hold of any papers--business letters--that Dad has here--and hide 'em. There might have been something embarrassing in the stuff. But when I got to the porch--I saw a trooper inside --so I came back."

"You took a long time."

"I was--Lord!--upset. Can't a man be upset when his father gets killed in a horrid and unexpected way? Sure I took a long time! I was walking around--trying to get calm!"

He sounded frantic--almost tearful.

Wes nodded and said, "Sorry, Bill."

"Ralph?"

In answer, Ralph Patton stood up, looking serious and granite-like behind his steel-rimmed spectacles. He smiled fugitively at Beth. "Yes, Wes?"

"You know anything about Jim's finances at present? His income?"

The accountant shrugged. "I handle only part of his work. As we all know, Jim had been an in-and-outer--an up-and-downer. Right now, so far as I know, he's in good shape. I don't know very far." The admission seemed to hurt or to anger him. His temples showed stress. "Jim had a big income. Some people pay taxes on their incomes and some bury them. What condition his estate is really in--I couldn't say."

"Know anything about his will?" Ralph nodded. "His estate--whatever it proves to be--is evenly divided between Beth and Bill."

The captain glanced toward the place where Beth sat. ''You and Bill--Martha and her mother--were asleep all last night? No disturbance? Jim didn't stop by?"

"No," said Beth clearly. "Nothing happened."

"Sit down, Ralph. I'll see you later about Jim's property. . . . Aggie Plum."

Aggie found himself rising. The eyes were on him. He had a weak feeling in the pit of his stomach--as he'd had in school when the teacher had called him to recite on a subject for which he was not prepared. He had intended to tell the police about his spying--but he'd expected the telling would be done in private. The thought flickered through his mind that Wes Wickman's system of public inquisition had certain points in its favor--for the inquisitor.

"I just stumbled on it," Aggie said--so lamely that somebody snorted. He thought it was Beth, but he could not be certain.

Wes was eying him--incredulously. "You--too--were fond of tramping about the woods?"

"I--why, yes."

"You were here this afternoon?"

"I was."

"When did you go out--for a stroll?"

"I don't know--exactly."

"Anybody notice? Jack?"

The manager said uncomfortably, "Why, I think Aggie was here until about five, anyway. I saw him telephoning--"

Wes nodded. "You went for a stroll. You happened to take that particular road.

You found Jim. When did you get to Indian Stones?"

Aggie told him when--and how. He told about Sarah's mumps. Dr. Davis corroborated one or two points with murmured words.

The trooper presently said, grinning slightly, "So Sarah has the mumps! Tough!

I'll drop in and see her. Dr. Plum, did you know Jim?"

"I must have--years ago. When I was twelve."

"Never saw him afterward?"

"No."

"Never did business with him? With any of his companies?"

"Never."

"You were taking that stroll with Danielle--"

He dropped in that question--more as a statement than an inquiry--so unexpectedly that Aggie balked again, even though he had been preparing himself for it.

' With Miss Davis?" he repeated. "Strolling? Why--why--yes."

"That's a lie," said Danielle flatly.

Again the room refocused itself. The officer was looking at Danielle and there was a glint in his eye. "Is it?" he asked blandly.

Now Danielle stood. Aggie sat down. She stared at him for a moment. "Bill Calder is an old friend of mine," she said presently. "I asked him to take me up on Garnet Knob to see the sunset." She glanced at Martha, Bill's pretty wife, and her eyes were veiled. "We'd done it often--when we were younger." Then she looked at Dr. Plum.

"Aggie heard me make the date. He wasn't phoning when Jack saw him--he was listening in on me. He followed Bill and me up the Knob. He listened to what we said. Aggie doesn't approve of me, Wes. And he's the Peeping Tom type. I suppose he gets a kick out of poking into other people's affairs." Again her eyes touched Martha. "Anyway, I saw his tracks in the old road when I came down with Bill, and I left Bill and took· a short cut we kids used to know--and there was Aggie--and there, as he told me, was Jim Calder."

A considerable buzz followed that. A buzz that forced the officer to say, "Quiet, everybody." Then he turned to the miserable anthropologist.
"Were
you tagging Danielle?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because--" Aggie halted. He was surely not going to inject Sarah into this. And yet--how else could he explain? He finally blurted, "Curiosity. Just pure curiosity."

People laughed. People looked angry. Beth had sucked in her lips with an expression of fascinated amusement in which was mingled a profound disdain. He did not try to look at Danielle. He knew that his original hope of achieving a pleasantly inconspicuous niche for himself at Indian Stones was ruined. He was angry, suddenly. Angry at the people for misunderstanding him--and angry at the cop for exposing him to such humiliation. His anger lighted his eyes and at the same time darkened the color under their shine. His chin shook and that made his Vandyke quiver. He took hold of the chair in front of him.